Secrecy News

ODNI Plan Seeks to Foster Intelligence Community Integration

The U.S. intelligence community can and should form a more integrated whole without its member agencies sacrificing their individual character, according to a Five Year Strategic Human Capital Plan (pdf) from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).

“A truly integrated IC is the only answer to the myriad threats that we face,” the newly disclosed June 2006 Plan states.

But “a national intelligence ‘service’ does not depend on or require a monolithic, homogeneous institutional culture, or a one-size-fits-all set of personnel rules and procedures (although some uniformity will undoubtedly be necessary).”

“I absolutely respect the cultures and traditions of the individual agencies,” Ron Sanders, the ODNI Chief Human Capital Officer told Secrecy News. “But this is one team, one fight. We have to come together in an integrated way.”

The 47 page Human Capital Plan accordingly outlines an approach to achieving what it calls “unity without uniformity.”

The term “human capital” (now used in place of “human resources”) encompasses all aspects of personnel management, from recruitment, hiring, salary and benefits, to training, promotion and termination. While it is not an intelligence function per se, it cuts to the core of the U.S. intelligence bureaucracy.

The Plan also provides new insight into a host of challenging intelligence community personnel matters, including workforce diversity, competition with the commercial sector, “generation gaps” within the intelligence community and security clearance policy.